


The Circle of Old Ones

by spiderfire



Category: Dark Is Rising Sequence - Susan Cooper
Genre: Gen, Post-Canon, Pre-Canon, Time Travel, Verb Tenses, enough said
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-09
Updated: 2018-12-09
Packaged: 2019-09-15 02:58:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,032
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16925238
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spiderfire/pseuds/spiderfire
Summary: Will Stanton wondered why it had taken him so long to wonder, if the first of the Old Ones was to be his teacher, who would be Merriman’s teacher? Merriman came to power in the dawn of civilization, millennia before the great things and the collected wisdom of Gramarye could be imagined, much less constructed.  After all of the times when Merriman spoke about the “Circle of Old Ones”, he wondered why he had never once thought about the implication of the world “circle”.





	The Circle of Old Ones

**Author's Note:**

> Five beings of wild magic sliced apart  
> Fire and water, wood and stone  
> The blade of iron and bronze brings a new start
> 
> Five beings of wild magic chose their way  
> Two to the Dark, two to the Light  
> The fifth pushed away
> 
> \- From the lost writings of the St. Ina, 5th century prophet

The first things he learned was that which an animal learns. Kill or be killed. Eat or be eaten. The first magics, the wild magics of a hunter, came easily to him. He crouched among the damp leaves and envisioned a rabbit or a squirrel or some other small creature. When one scurried by, his hand lashed out and he held the limp animal by its head, its neck broken. 

The first kill of the day he ate himself, tearing the animal’s skin with his teeth, chewing the rich meat from the bones. The animal’s blood ran down his chin. Bits of fur and flesh lodged beneath his ragged nails. When he was done, he washed himself by licking the blood from fingers and then licking his hands and wiping them across his body. 

He returned to the hunt, killing two or three more times. He brought his prey back to the small cave where they sheltered, he and the two with whom he had always been. There was the other, the protector. He and the other were alike in many ways. Their magics were the magics of the beasts: to hunt, to hide. Then there was the frail one. The frail one was different. Her magic was something else. She commanded rain from the sky and banished wind from the trees. She sang with the stars and danced with the stones underfoot. 

Despite the fact that he and the other were alike, there was a closeness between the other and the frail one. The other always let her pick first from the kills he brought them. The frail one would allow the other to sit close as they watched the rain lash the trees. It made him feel a powerful sensation deep in his chest, and as much as it was unpleasant, he found that he liked the strength it brought him. 

As the hunter, he ranged from their home. He knew that they were not alone in the world. He knew that there were other creatures who walked on two legs and did not have pelts. Those creatures were not like them. They blundered through their hunts, often as not coming back empty-handed. They wrapped their bodies in the decaying remains of their meals. In time, they toiled over the earth, coaxing plants to grow where they would not. They suffered through the rain and wind and snow. He and the protector and the frail one were different, better. 

One night he sat next to the frail one while the other sat on her far side. They huddled against the chill air, and watched as the moon turned from bright white to the color of blood. He wondered if this was the frail one’s doing, but she seemed as entranced as they. When the moon returned to white, they brought their eyes down and there was a man, facing them. 

This man was strange to his eyes. Like those creatures, he covered his skin with a pelt but this man’s the pelt was unlike anything he had ever seen. It was long and flowing and where the light of the moon struck it, he could see that it was the color of the sky as day turned to night. Unlike the creatures, there was a deep presence to this man that reminded him of the moment in a storm before lightning shot from the clouds to the earth. The frail one gasped, and she squeezed his arm, hard enough that he cried out. The other touched her leg and made a gentle sound and together they looked at the strange man. 

The strange man stretched out his arm towards them. His fingers were spread wide, every muscle stiff. His back straightened and somehow he seemed to grow larger. It was an odd position, not a threatening one. He opened his mouth and a reverberant sound came out. 

The world spun. 

***

Will Stanton sat at a plain wooden desk in a barren stone cell. He wore the crude brown robe of a monk, belted by a length of rope. A dusty volume lay open on the desk. He had been searching through Time to find this book. Unlike the Book of Gramarye that he had read in his youth, and the Book of Innocence that he had read in the days after the Departure, this volume was not a spell-bound book of the Light. This book was a book of Men. 

The book contained the writings of Saint Ina, daughter of the king Ceredig ap Cunedda. Will had met her once, when she was a girl. He had gone to the king’s hall as a travelling minstrel. When dinner was over, Will had taken his place by the roaring fire and he had sung for the king’s court. Young Ina had crept through the dark, unwashed men. Her pale linen dress and clean skin had been like a lantern. Ina had stared at him while he sang. When he had finished, she had come up to him and said words that were out of place, coming from a young girl’s mouth. “Signseeker,” she had said. Will had stared at her, startled. “You should not have come to this place. It is the law. You may not know me.” Will had opened his mouth but she had put her small hand over his lips. “When I am dust, you must read that which I have not yet spoken. Go now.” 

He stared at the page. He wondered why it had taken him so long to wonder, if the first of the Old Ones was to be his teacher, who would be Merriman’s teacher? Merriman came to power in the dawn of civilization, millennia before the great things and the collected wisdom of Gramarye could be imagined, much less constructed. After all of the times when Merriman spoke about the “Circle of Old Ones”, he wondered why he had never once thought about the implication of the world “circle”. 

***

Mithotyn tilted his wings to the wind. He soared over the grassland, searching for motion. When his sharp eyes spotted some small creature scurrying from spot to spot, he tucked his head and screamed as he dove. He liked it when they fled from him. There was nothing as satisfying as the crunch within his claws as the terrified animal died in his grasp.

Their teacher, who they called Lar, had shown them how to fly with the birds, swim with the fish, tear through the sky with the lightning, and whip with the wind. In one lesson, Lar had led them become a rabbits. He had wanted them to learn the magic of the dash, the sweet taste of grass, and the gentle affection of littermates. Although the frail one and Myrddin often spoke of that day, Mithotyn had vowed to never take that form again. The gnawing hunger of the hunter’s lean days was far preferable to the constant, twitching fear of prey. 

He glided lazily on warm air while he waited for prey to show itself. His peace was interrupted when Osle called to him, mind to mind. He had not yet made a kill today, and he ignored her, but her call was insistent and distracting. With a scream of frustration, he turned his flight to bring himself back to the others. 

The cave with the glade where they had lived for untold years had changed now that they knew of the magics of the making of things. The sweet spring where they had always quenched their thirst still trickled down the rocks, but now there was a ring of stone that contained the homefire that Osle tended. She gathered deadfall and used a stone axe that Myrddin had chipped for her to feed the flames. She took that which he had hunted and transformed it into something else, something delicious. There was a hut Lar and Myrddin had made out of cut stone. There were scratches on birch bark and hide, recording their observations of the sun and stars. 

If he had been running as a wolf, he would have smelled the fire long before he saw it, but flying as an eagle he had little sense of smell. Instead, he saw the column of nearly colorless smoke rising from their glade when he was still far away. As he got closer, he could not see Lar, but Osle and Myrddin sat side by side next to the fire. Mithotyn again considered turning away, but Osle’s call echoed in his mind. He ducked into a dive and landed effortlessly on two human feet. Shaking himself, his feathers fell into the dark cloak that Myrddin had fashioned for him. 

“What is it?” he demanded as soon as he was able to utter the words with a human tongue. 

“Lar is gone,” Myrddin said. 

Mithotyn looked towards the hut and back at them. “What?” he said. “Are you sure?” 

“I had a dream,” Osle said. 

Mithotyn looked at Myrddin. “Did you look for him?” he asked. 

“In my dream,” Osle continued, “Lar stood before me and showed me a blade, but not a blade of stone. It reflected light like the sunset on water. It was most beautiful. Lar said to me, ‘You have lived apart from Men for long enough. Your paths must be intertwined with theirs. When the five stand together with this blade of iron and bronze between you, I will return.’ Then he was gone.” 

“Did you look for him?” Mithotyn asked Myrddin again, but Osle interrupted. “He is gone,” she said with finality and he believed her. 

“But he still has things to teach us!” Mithotyn said. 

“He told Osle that he would come back,” Myrddin said. 

“When we have a blade of iron and bronze?” Mithotyn said, tasting the unfamiliar words. “What does that mean? And five? There are only three of us. Four if you count him.”

“Iron and bronze are what the blade is made of,” Myrddin said. “Lar showed me. Last winter. We were walking and I spotted a growth of white flowers that had pushed up through the snow. Lar crouched down next to them and he said to me, ‘Study these flowers, Myrddin, and see what they will teach us.’ So I crouched down next to him and spoke to the flowers, as he taught us. Gradually, I began to hear this tremendous banging that first seemed far away, but it got louder. I looked up and found the flowers were planted next to a hut. Smoke came out of hut’s roof and an orange light poured from the hut’s door. In front of the door stood largest, whitest, calmest horse I have ever seen. The horse made a soft sound as Lar raised his hand. ‘Gently now,’ he said to the horse. It was as if they recognized each other. The horse stood calmly, even though there was a man that had one of its feet clenched between his knees and was hammering something to its foot.

“Then the man stood and placed his hand on the horse’s flank. ‘Off you go,’ he said. The horse whinnied and trotted away. The man looked at me. He had the same deep-lined face that Lar has. His face slowly broke into a smile. ‘Ah Will Stanton,’ he said. ‘Greetings John Smith,’ Lar said in reply. Then Lar said, ‘I bring young Myrddin to learn of iron and bronze.’ John Smith took my hand and showed me the oven where stone was melted into a white-hot liquid, and how the liquid could be poured into shapes to harden. Then he put his hand over my shoulder and we walked out of the hut. In front of the hut were great doors. They were three times my height and at least two arm-spans wide. They had not been there before. We went through them and he showed me men using the metals to forge weapons and tools and the most beautiful ornaments. When I turned, John Smith was gone and Lar stood beside me again. We stood in a wood, ankle deep in snow. Dozens of little white flowers had pushed up through the snow. I crouched to touch a flower. ‘Take us home,’ Lar said. I looked back at the flowers and when I looked up again, the wood had changed and we were back here.” 

Mithotyn stared at Myrddin. He opened his mouth and shut it. Abruptly, turned his back. How was it that Osle and Myrddin both were given information and Lar had given him nothing? Angrily, he stalked a dozen steps away and stared into the forest. Not turning back, not wanting to see the two of them standing close enough that their sides touched, Mithotyn said, “There is a group of men to the east of here. We might as well start there.” 

****

The problem, Will Stanton soon determined, was that the magic of the doors extended only so far as their own Making. The doors were of the Light, which meant they could not be used to travel to a time before the Light and the Dark fragmented from the wild magic. 

It was not until later that he remembered the Lady’s message to Jane. Some things must be communicated like to like. That got him thinking of cycles. As a child of the 20th century, he knew that many of cycles had a scientific explanation, but that did not take from the power of their magic. The Earth travelled around the Sun and created the magic of the year, which was captured in ancient ruins like Stonehenge. The Earth spinning on its axis, together with the pull of the Sun and Moon, created the ebb and flow of the tides. The complicated interaction between the Earth’s orbit and the Moon’s orbit created cycles of eclipses. Even sunspots, it seemed, had cycles. Perhaps, if like called to like, like moments in time called to other moments in time. 

How was he to travel to a moment of time that he knew nothing about, not even when? 

But ah, he realized. He did know when. He needed to travel to the moment when Merriman first learned of his gifts. 

On Midwinter morn many years after he had had his first walking, he stood on the Chiltern Hills and joined his younger self walking through the doors to the Great Hall. It was as he remembered it. He brought the candle forward as a part of a long-laid spell he did not yet recognize to release the Sign of Fire from its hiding place. He saw Merriman and the Lady standing by the fire. After so many years of his lonely office, it made his heart ache to see them again. He relived Merriman’s first lessons of the Old Ones. And then, Merriman took one of the great candles from the ring and held it up to the tapestries on the wall. “Look well, for each moment,” he said, his deep voice echoing faintly in the great hall. “The Old Ones will show you something of themselves, and remind the deepest part of you. For one moment, look at each.” Merriman’s hand was on his shoulder and he held the candle aloft, again and again, beside each tapestry. He saw a May tree white with blossom. He saw four great standing stones on a green headland. He saw the empty-eyed grinning white skull of a horse. He saw the full moon in eclipse, blood red against a black sky. He saw lightning strike a huge beech tree, and out of the flash, a great fire burning on a bare hillside. “Remember them,” Merriman said. “They will be a strength.” Then, he heard noises outside, the cries of a dog that sounded exactly like his own, and they were besieged. The Black Rider whirled around, bringing terror in his wake. 

***

At first, they went from village to village, searching for the knife that Osle had seen in her dream, but the tools of men were made of stone and wood, nothing more. Weary of searching, they settled for a time in a village, learning from the men and teaching them something of their crafts in return. Mithotyn taught the children to hunt and fight and take what they needed from the world. Myrddin taught the adults to protect and defend that which was precious. Osle taught anyone who would listen of the magic of the sun and the moon and the stars. 

They already knew that they were not like other men, but they had not realized how different they were. The people in the villages lived short lives, often dying in childhood or maybe living 30 or 40 winters after their birth, their bodies worn out by a lifetime of hard labor. The three of them appeared to be of the age of adults, but Osle never bore a child and they were untouched by Time. 

They travelled to a shore and saw the endless waters. They went to another shore and saw a distant land. Myrddin made a boat and they crossed the water and travelled there for a while. They learned new languages. They met people who looked quite different from themselves, with darker skins and different shapes to their faces. They began to see the brown metal called bronze, but nothing like the knife Osle had seen in her dream. 

One day, when they were travelling through a vast forest, Osle said, “Do you hear that?” 

“Hear what?” Myrddin said. 

“Listen.” 

Mithotyn stood very still, like the patient predator he was, and listened. After a moment, he did hear something, though he was not sure he was hearing with his ears. Bubbling laughter trickled like water over rocks. 

“This way,” Osle said becoming a pale doe. Myrddin looked at Mithotyn and Mithotyn looked back. Myrddin became a stag and followed Osle. Mithotyn, who saw no reason to take the form of prey, followed on two legs. 

Osle and Myrddin were fleet and they got ahead of him. He did not hurry. He put one foot in front of the other and his feet brought him to a clearing on a hilltop. Right at the top of the hill, at the highest point, there was a stone slab. The slab was maybe half again as long as he was tall, and half his height wide. It was set up on four boulders. He looked around the rest of the clearing. Ankle high blueberry bushes and tufts of grass desperately held on to the barren rock. A few trees, deformed by the winter winds so they only had branches on one side, dug their roots into cracks in the rock. Eight irregularly spaced standing stones ringed the clearing. Mithotyn recognized them. They marked south and north, east and west, and sunrise and sunset on the solstices. This was a place of ritual. 

Mithotyn walked up to the table and placed his hand on it. His hand tingled. Startled, he yanked his hand back. The sensation of magic was familiar, but he had never encountered a thing with such power. Wonderingly, he put his hand back and touched it again. 

The sensation was intoxicating and the longer he held his hand there, the more powerful it became. He laughed aloud. His laughter was joined by another. He yanked his hand away and spun around. A large fox with white fur and yellow eyes faced him. The fox became a pale woman with long white hair that fell from her head in thick clumps that made him think of snakes. Her body was draped with a cloak made from the pelts of many foxes. She moved sinuously towards him. “Have you ever seen anything like my table?” she purred. 

Mithotyn took a step back, stammering, “No,” he said. His backside ran up hard against the stone. 

She took a step forward, standing close enough that he could feel her breath on his face. He tried to slip to the side, but his feet would not move. Panic welled up in him. 

“Yes,” she said, drawing out the ‘s’ sound. “Spilling your blood on my table…” She placed the palm of her hand on his chest and gave him a push. He fell back, sprawling across the stone slab. The power of the table coursed through his body and he twitched. She was astride him, her legs across his waist, her hands pinning his shoulders. 

He remembered a time when he had been a wolf. He had killed enough for the day, but a rabbit crossed his path. It was large, and healthy and he wanted to taste its blood. He slinked on his belly until he got close enough and then pounced. He caught the rabbit unawares and, for a moment, he had it between his front paws. Somehow, before he closed his jaws on its throat, it squirmed free and fled for the trees. 

The table had power, so he drew on it. He opened his mind and energy burst out of him, utterly out of control. He was thrown backwards and he landed hard, against one of the standing stones. In that moment, dazed by the impact, he saw how the table got its power. He saw her moving through a village, taking her time to lure a man or woman or child away from the others. When the moon was at its highest, she stood by the table, naked in the moon’s light. Her prey was stretched across the table, held hand and foot by four cloaked figures. She lifted a knife that glinted bronze and silver, and then struck. The chanting intensified. 

Mithotyn blinked to clear his vision and looked across the clearing. She was sprawled across the ground. He became a red fox so large he might have been mistaken for a young wolf. He approached her, ears flat against his head. She became a fox as well, and fled. He chased her. She was smaller and could turn faster than he, but he was older and wiser in the ways of the hunt. He cut her off and pounced on her, flipping her on her back. He pinned her to the ground with his greater weight. “This magic,” he said to her. “How did you learn it?” 

“You are a hunter,” she said. “Do you not kill for the joy of it?” 

Mithotyn paused. He thought of the rabbit that got away. He realized that he had never actually killed when he, or the others, did not need to eat. 

She twisted free of his grasp and stood, facing him. “If you want power, real power, you need to take it.” Mithotyn immediately wondered what Myrddin-the-protector would say to this woman. She laughed at him. This time it was an ugly hacking sound. “You must get away from those two, just as I got away from my brother.” 

He knew she was right. They had been holding him back for uncounted years. 

“Will you teach me?” he asked. 

A smile curved her lips and she was again human. “Help me get my blade back from my brother, and I’ll show you all that I know.” 

He stood on two feet, also becoming human. “What are you called?” he asked her. 

“I am Morra,” she replied. 

“Mithotyn,” he said. 

***

The cries faded and Will looked up. He was alone in the Great Hall of the Light. It was quiet. The hearth was cold. Slivers of light shone through the window-slits far above. The tapestries still hung on the walls but their images were barely visible in the dim light. A dark bundle of cloth was draped over a chair. 

It was cold in the hall. Will lifted the bundle of cloth and shook it loose. It was a dark blue cloak. Will recognized it. It was Merriman’s cloak, the cloak of a Lord of High Magic. It would not be here if it was not for him. Will swung the cloak around his shoulders and felt its weight settle there. 

By his art, Will lit the fire in the fireplace and then he turned to study the images on the tapestry. All of the images, save one, he had lived. He walked to the tapestry showing the blood red moon and touched the fabric. He stared into the tapestry, studying the configuration of the stars. Slowly the hall faded around him, and he was standing in a forest. The full moon was darkened to a blood red. Three naked people with matted hair and filthy skin sat huddled together, staring up at the sky. Two men flanked a slight woman. 

He was shocked to realize he recognized them. 

Words of Old Speech formed in his mind. He raised his hand, fingers stiff and outstretched, and spoke the first words of the Spell of Klieben. The spell had been in his mind since the book of Gramarye, but it had never occurred to him that he had been the one to wield it. 

***  
It was moments before the solstice sunrise. Morra and Mithotyn swept into the ring of standing stones, entering properly from the south. Their cloaks were no longer made of animal pelts, but were crafted of light and dark woven wool. They wore sturdy leather sandals on their feet and they each carried an oaken staff. 

It had been many years since Mithotyn had seen Myrrdin or Osle, but he found they were not changed. They were in the center of the ring of standing stones, hand and hand with a third, a dark-skinned man. The dark skinned man had to be Nsi. Nsi was to Morra, as Myrrdin had been to him: protector to hunter. The three of them stood, their hands joined in a circle. Osle’s back was to him, but he could see Myrrdin’s and Nsi’s faces, creased in concentration. 

On a mat of woven reeds between them was Morra’s blade. The blade glinted a dull gold in the pre-dawn light. The air around them crackled faintly with power. 

“What are they doing?” Morra demanded. 

“What they always do,” Mithotyn said, his voice low and measured. “They are cornered. They can no longer run. They hide.”

“We must not let them,” Morra said, her voice rising to a shriek. “I must have my blade back!” 

Even from a distance, Mithotyn could see them duck their heads and tighten their hands when they heard Morra’s voice. “We must break the circle,” he said. “And quickly, before the sun rises. I’ll come from the east, you from the west. Go.” 

Mithotyn circled left, Morra right. They closed in on the three in the center, each brandishing their staffs. At the same moment, they swung down. Morra broke the grip between Nsi and Osle, while Mithotyn broke the grip between Osle and Myrddin. The crackle of power became a soundless burst and all five staggered. An instant later, the first rays of sun broke over the horizon. 

With a cackle of glee, Morra dove for the blade. Mithotyn, with his longer reach, snatched it away from her. He swung around to face Myrddin and Osle, the blade gleaming in the early sun. 

And then Lar was there. Lar’s dark blue cloak stirred in the light wind that had risen with the sun. Osle crumpled to the ground. 

Lar dropped to one knee by Osle, “My lady,” he said softy, resting his hand on her shoulder. She turned her head to face him and something passed between them that Mithotyn could not read, and then the tension went from her limbs and her head lolled. 

“You killed her,” Myrddin shouted, lunging at Mithotyn, reaching out to grab the knife. 

Mithotyn swept back, swinging the knife from Myrddin’s reach. “It’s not for you,” Mithotyn said. “You do not have the heart of a hunter, you can not wield it.” 

“It’s mine!” Morra shouted. 

“I forged it,” Nsi said. 

“Do you know what that blade is for?” Myrddin demanded, trying again to grab the blade. 

Mithotyn stepped out of the way. “Of course,” he said. “Shall I show you?” 

“How could you?” Myrddin demanded. “It is a corruption of wild magic!” 

Mithotyn laughed again. “It is no such thing. The weasel and the fox, the bear and the lynx all know the magic of the unneeded kill, the power to be had in that moment. Why shouldn’t we take that power too? Let’s go Morra,” he said. 

Lar, who had been kneeling next to Osle, stood. She lay motionless at his feet. The rising sun was behind him. It made a glowing halo behind his head. He raised his arms and spoke, his voice deep and resonant, in a language Mithotyn did not yet know. Mithotyn shivered. The ground shook. “Let’s go, Morra,” he said again. 

****

The final syllables of the Spell of Klieben resonated in the morning air. Mithotyn and Morra walked away, their light and dark cloaks billowing behind them. Myrddin started after Mithotyn and Morra, but Will Stanton extended his arm. “Stop,” he said, touching Myrddin’s arm. “Let them go.”

“But they have the knife,” Myrddin said. 

Will looked at Myrddin, seeing the shape of the face that would harden over the millennia into his master, Merriman. “They do. The knife is simply the first of the things of power. It will not be the last. The craftsmen of the Light will, over the years, create many things. When...if you play your parts well, their winning will bring you victory in the war.” 

“What war?” Nsi said. 

Will looked from one to the other. “The war between Light and Dark.” 

Myrddin and Nsi looked at each other. Will bent down again and scooped the frail body of the Lady up in his arms. “I must go,” he said. 

“Wait,” Myrddin said. “Where are you taking her?” 

Will adjusted her weight and settled her head against his shoulder. “To heal, for a time. She will come back to you.” 

“And you? Will I see you again?” 

Will looked into the eager, scared eyes of young Merriman. “Oh yes,” he said. “We will meet again.”

**Author's Note:**

> Mithotyn = The Black Rider  
> Myrddin = Another name for Merlin  
> Osle = Literally translates as "black bird" which is the closest I could get to a "wren"  
> Lar = Translates as "teacher", because I don't like using "master" in the way it is used in the book  
> Morra = One of the Lords of Dark that Hawkin calls into the Manor  
> Spell of Klieban = Klieban - to break apart


End file.
